---
title: "Alas! what shall I say to the Sultan? — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: "Alas! what shall I say to the Sultan? Who acts: cook. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/5/20/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Arabian Nights Entertainments](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/) / [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/5/) / 20

# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 5, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Alas! what shall I say to the Sultan?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cook · **What happens:** say · **To what, where:** Sultan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cook), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg128:5:20
# text = "Alas! what shall I say to the Sultan?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
5	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Sultan	Sultan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | shall | cook |  | the Sultan |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent what=Topic to sultan=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/5/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/5/21/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg128/5/)